Good For Me, But Bad For Them

It was quite a day today. After our playgroup, we headed downtown for Raef and Zach's violin/viola lessons. They have been taking lessons from Dustin Budish since we moved here and they seem to be doing well. There have been many rocky lessons where I can tell that Dustin is completely frazzled and wishes he could cuddle up to a cabernet, but he still keeps letting us come back.  

Today, they fortunately had good lessons. I am so grateful.  Dustin tells me they are very talented and could really go far in music if they wanted to. That is nice to hear. I mean, of course I think they are fabulous musicians, but it could just be the rose-colored Mommy glasses, you know?  So, we will just keep plugging away at practicing and even if it is only a few minutes everyday, hopefully they will continue to enjoy playing their instruments.

Then we got home from lessons and the boys asked to play the Wii.  I let them, and after an hour or so, I hear this horrific, shrill, screaming episode coming out of Zach's mouth. Ugh.  I tell them to turn it off.  Not to get into all the gory details, but the outcome should paint a pretty clear picture. They both lost their allowances, the Wii is in a box at the top of my closet, and my kitchen is very clean.

Lucky for me, I had already arranged a night out with my homeschool friends, Jennifer, LeeAnn, and Julianna. We went to BJ's and ate and talked and talked and talked. It was really nice and I enjoyed that time to myself.  Plus, it is great to be around women who have been there before and can give you insight into your struggles. They helped me to rethink some things I have been doing that have not been working so well for me or my kids.  I am grateful that I could just laugh and have fun and recharge my batteries.

I am really going to need it, because tomorrow I have to take all of my kiddos to Raef and Zach's soccer game.  I will take deep cleansing breaths and bring a lot of lollipops.